BROWARD TO PIONEER U.S. JUVENILE OFFENDER PROGRAM

Broward County has been selected to launch a national program to try to reduce the number of juveniles in jail and stop youths from becoming career criminals.

Gregory Coler, secretary of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, on Wednesday said that a two-year, $800,000 project financed by a private foundation and his agency would seek alternatives to juvenile detention.

"Florida locks up too many kids," Coler said at a news conference at the Broward Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale. "It's a waste of taxpayer dollars and the kids don't get the kind of help they need to avoid ending up in prison."

HRS officials said the program's goal would be to reduce the population at the crowded Broward Regional Juvenile Detention Center, which is the focus of a federal civil rights class action suit by detainees.

The 133-bed center near West Broward Boulevard and Interstate 95 now houses 180 juveniles and has held up to 207 youths.

"By targeting Broward, we're flying into the eye of the detention storm in Florida, and what we build here will be the model for the rest of the state," Coler said.

The state's 20 detention centers have been experiencing severe crowding problems for years. Statewide, there are 1,500 children in detention and only 1,400 beds.

Officials say the centers are costly -- $55 a day per teen -- and often unnecessary for many juveniles, who would not become repeat criminals if they received treatment.

The centers are set up to be short-term, secure sites that hold offenders who are awaiting a court hearing and are a danger to the community, officials said.

But Florida has been criticized by child advocates for locking up runaway and truant youths who have committed no crimes but have violated a judge's order to stop their bad behavior.

A recent study by the Florida Center for Children and Youth revealed that in 1986, 1,913 dependents were placed in detention centers throughout the state for a total of 4,255 days, most because they had run away in contempt of a judge's order.

During that time, 70 of those youths spent an average of 23.7 days each in the Broward Detention Center.

"Those children should not be kept in detention," said Ken Winder, the Tallahassee-based group's project director. "There's a critical need to reduce the population in these centers, which are chronically overcrowded."

The federal lawsuit against the Broward center charges that the detainees' civil rights have been violated because of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and abusive punishment.

HRS Children Youth and Families Director Buddy Streit said the pilot project will be a "good-faith effort" to show that the state is trying to correct its problems.

The program is being financed by a $500,000 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Greenwich, Conn., and $300,000 from HRS. It will be coordinated by Broward Circuit Judge Frank Orlando, who retires on Friday to become director of the Center for the Study of Youth Policy at Florida Atlantic University.

Officials said the project's goal will be to set up drug treatment programs, family shelter homes, and a daytime community center for education and vocational training, among other alternatives to detention.

JUVENILES BEHIND BARS

Number of juveniles who committed no crimes but were locked in detention centers because they were in contempt of a judge's order: